06/30/2010

Ah, little thrifting blog, I have severely neglected you. My very bad. With the return of my summer (non)-schedule, however, I thought I'd try to get back to posting here every once in a while.

Although I haven't been posting, I have been continuing my quest to live a more financially stable, debt-free life. The biggest change I've made, honestly, is to just spend within my income. Stopping the habit of pulling out my credit card, and switching to using my debit card, has made a huge impact on my life and sanity level. This has so much to do with making a decent salary (for those just tuning in, I worked a series of jobs that paid me less than $32,000 for the first 10 years out of college), because now I have the scope to spend more wisely. Back then, it was simple to put expenses on a credit card, because there was no conceivable way for me to live the kind of life I wanted (decent clothes, traveling, going out occasionally) without using a credit card. Not in New York City, anyway. I'm not justifying -- I am certainly paying for it, literally, now. I can't say I recommend this lifestyle choice, but I did make it, and here I am. And now I'm making another lifestyle choice -- to live within my means.

A resource that I have found helpful is CreditKarma. At this site you can, for free, check your credit report and get your credit score. There are quite a few sites that will let you check your credit score for free, although they always seem to need to try to sell you a bazillion sides with your "free" report. This site doesn't do that, at least that I saw, and they also provide the credit score, that mystical number that reveals how well you'll qualify for things like mortgages and whatnot. I was super relieved to see that mine is very high. I guess my many years of always making my payments on time (and, I'm sure, the last six months of paying debt down) has really helped.

Another thing I've done, which has helped, is to set up an online savings account. I have a savings account tied to my regular bank account, as well as some savings in investments, stocks and bonds (nothing spectacular, please, no thieves try a Panic Room-esque attack on me to get to said monies). The online account, which I set up last fall, takes a small sum out of my checking and is labeled "Travel/Christmas." It is getting bigger, slowly but surely, and it's really relieving to know I'm saving to buy the 8 million Christmas gifts I give every year (my family is too small to do that "Choose the name of a person" thing; we like gifts too much not to give them at all; and I have two Godchildren and one fairy to buy for). I've also used this money for emergency-ish purchases. For example, I decided in April that I simply could not spend another year sweltering in my living room or huddled in front of my bedroom air-conditioner. (A very wise decision, as it has been a hundred million degrees in New York this summer, so far). I used the money in this account to buy an A/C and I regret it not one bit. There's nothing like paying, in full, for an expensive piece of electronics.

04/10/2010

The good news is that I'm still trying to lead a thriftier, less waste-producing, less debt-producing lifestyle. I am thrilled to report that I haven't put any new purchases on my credit cards since I started this blog in January... whoops! That's a bit misleading. I did buy bus tickets to DC to see my brother for a weekend, but I paid the credit card back out of my bank account. And then, after a feverish back and forth with the bus company over the many ills they caused me on the trip, I got a chunk of that fare refunded anyway.

That's my big thrifty tip of the day -- write angry letters. :)

One aspect of my life that I've been trying to improve is how I eat. New York, as you all know, is a wonderland of restaurants, and since I live in Park Slope, only a few blocks from 5th Avenue's amazing stretch of good places to eat, it's far too easy to grab take-out or supplement something at home with, oh, an expensive soup picked up at one of our bazillion specialty stores. I'm pretty good about packing something to take for lunch at school, but sometimes I run out of time, or food, or initiative... or my friend/colleagues Danielle or JM lure me into going to Domino's...

I notice that I cook more when it's pleasurable to me. (Duh!) So I've been making an effort to tidy up my kitchen and package food in an appetizing way. The photo above is a good example. I like how my various grains and beans look all neatly put away in recycled jars. And bulk food purchases are so much cheaper than regular groceries. The three jars above -- with coconut, sea salt [part of my thyroid maintenance] and dried chickpeas -- are a small selection of a collection that now includes grits, wheat germ, flour, sugar, salt, quinoa and so on.

I'm not perfect. If you look at the photo closely, you'll see a tumbler and a plate from Target's Liberty of London line. Oh, Lordy, I love that line of housewares and clothes. I have made two trips to Target (in two different states) and spent, literally, over an hour deciding what I could buy. It was sort of weirdly agonizing, but I am happy with the choices I made. Love that tumbler. Love that plate. Love that I'm not in debt over them.

03/14/2010

This is the great big project of my Winter Olympics viewing. It took me about 10 hours, all together (not in one sitting), to sew those buttons onto the pillow in a big "S" form. I'm really proud of how it turned out!

I saw the idea in a magazine, and bought the materials to do it the next day. (This is something to contemplate about my idea of moving out of New York City and back to Pennsylvania -- is the proximity to craft supplies and ease of getting them a good or bad thing?). The flannel, the same kind used on my other pillow, in a different color, was $2. The buttons turned out to be quite an expense -- $2.50 a bag and I needed 3 bags. I kept going back to Jo-Ann's with another "50% Off One Regularly Priced Item" coupon. Of course, this is par for the course in thrifty Jtown, so no one batted an eye.

I printed out a big "S" on my parents' computer, and then cut it out and traced it onto the fabric with chalk. Then I put the S in a fabric hoop and started sewing on buttons. I used a purple thread that matches the other pillow because it looked nice and made me feel super coordinated and smart. And then I sewed and sewed and sewed. It's pretty fun. But it was also good to have something to watch and my folks to talk to whilst I sewed. I just finished the pillow last night using the same method I described in the purple pillow post.

I'm displaying my pillow in my living room, next to the purple pillow, but for these photos, I brought it back to this old chair I have in my bedroom. I thrifted it years ago, for, I think $10. It's super-comfortable and I like the way the rust color looks with the sun coming in. The pillow on it was made my by my grandmother. It is a gorgeous pillow. Each of those diamonds is hand appliqued on and secured with French knots in the corners. She did amazing work. Every time I look at this pillow, I say a prayer of thanks, because I am so glad that she made it, and that I have something that so totally manifests her love and care. Touching these things that I have that she made make me feel the closest to her that I can.

The pillow I made cost me about $12, which I think it is pretty good, considering all the leftover scraps and how nicely it turned out. But the pillow above is absolutely priceless.

03/06/2010

The life of semi-frugality continues. Today, I went to my local housewares store (it's two blocks away, veerry local) to buy a cake decorating supplies. I wanted to make deviled eggs for the Oscar party I'm going to tomorrow and since it's the Oscars and they are FANcy, I wanted to pipe the egg innards into the egg whites with a rosette tip. I also want to learn to make French macaroons (which I fell in love with in Paris and which are EXPENSIVE here [and there, for that matter]), so I needed a straight-up round hole tube tip too. I ended up buy a high-quality bag, a coupler and the two tips for about $8. The smallest kit they had was $11, and it didn't have the round hole tip, plus the bag wasn't very good quality. Let that be a lesson -- sometimes buying piecemeal is cheaper. It's also helpful to have grown up two doors down from a cake decorating supply store (yes) called The Honey Tree, and so to have developed a cake decorating hobby as a teenager. I just made the eggs, and all of that training came rushing right back to me -- how to set up the bag, how far to fill it, how to pipe out neatly. Nice memories.

I've been making a lot of stuff lately. I seem to have two twin interests right now, beyond my usual interests of work/writing/friends/family/obsessive collecting of magazines. Those are 1) making good things to eat and 2) making nice things for my apartment. It doesn't take much of a stretch to see that these are both related to my thriftier lifestyle. Without the opportunity to bring more crap into the house (yay), I'm now interested in making the stuff I have look better. Also, since I refuse to spend lots of money randomly, that means food has become more of a treat. I'm also trying to cook for myself more often because it's cheaper and better for me.

Anyhoodle. I've been working on pillows for my living room couch. I am halfway finished with another one, so I will post that soon. This one (above) came together much more quickly and is, if I may so, completely AWESOME. It's purple flannel (on sale for $2 a yard at Jo-Ann's) with purple satin roses. I made the roses myself, out of a heavy fabric that my mom amazingly found in the sale rack at the store for $3 yard. I could only get 1/2 yard, but still, the color match was perfect. I have a really good eye for color, but my mom's eye is absolutely amazing. She matched that without even having the flannel with her. I also bought a pillow form for about $6, but you could easily do the same thing with a spare pillow. Then I just made the roses, cut and sewed together two squares for the pillow cover (the pillow is 14 by 14, so I cut out squares that are 15 by 15 and sewed them with a 1/2" seam allowance). I put the pillow cover in an embroidery hoop and tacked the roses on. That was really tactile and fun.

Here's a not-great close-up of them. By the way, I deliberately let the fraying edge of the fabric show. I just like that look. My apartment is very, very Shabby Chic. :)

I made the other pillow in the photos, too, by the way, but it's old and the stuffing has settled. I have a weakness for Chinese brocade, as you can see. The blanket is an amazingly warm and soft throw I got on the Isle of Harris last summer in Scotland. I had gone into a store that sold lengths of the famous Harris Tweed (bought some gorgeous green tween there) and fell in love with the throw. I bought it without any clear idea of how I was going to get it home. To my father's credit, when he saw me emerge with a package the size of a small pony, he just said, "Those are nice colors." I ended up wrapping it incredibly tightly and throwing out a pair of old, falling apart boots to get it in my suitcase. But it was worth it.

The total cost of that pillow is about $10, and I have enough flannel (and satin, for that matter) left to make another patchwork pillow. But first, I have to show you the next one, which is going to be incredible...

03/01/2010

I haven't posted in this blog recently, but I decided I'd better get to it today. I wanted to let you know that I have not given up nor been done in by the concept of living more simply. In fact, I find myself more and more in tune with it. I am, at heart, an anxious person (aren't we all?) but I'm finding that feeling I have a grasp on how much money I have, what bills I need to pay and how I'll use any money coming in is giving me a sense of comfort and control. Control is an illusion, of course, but illusions are helpful from time to time.

One thing I've been doing which I find is better for my wallet and my diet is making my own granola. I found the recipe on one of the blogs I read. It's super tasty -- oats, wheat germ, whole wheat flour, coconut, honey and almonds. [Aside: I can't help but note that I ate only coconut and honey out of that list until 3 or 4 years ago.] The recipe I have is for a gargantuan amount -- like, 20 cups worth, which I could never, ever eat before it goes stale, or before I turn into granola. So I make about a 1/4 of a recipe. I had to buy a lot of the ingredients, not having them on hand, and I was sort of saying to myself that it was too expensive (almonds=not cheap), it was cheaper to continue on eating what I ate for breakfast, etc. etc. But now I realize that I've made about 5 batches from the ingredients I bought and only now need to replentish them.

I'm seriously in love with this granola. It's got fiber and keeps me full for 4+ hours, and it's sweet enough to jumpstart the day (I'm hypoglycemic, and I need sugar like you might need coffee in the morning). In fact, I love it so much, I bought it its own container:

It wasn't an expensive container! And that ties in nicely with what I'm trying to express above. I knew I had the money to afford the container when I found it at a reasonable price. I didn't have to panic and worry that I'd not be able to afford groceries, or have to put my next plane ticket on my credit card. It's a good feeling.

02/18/2010

And it nearly did me in, the lamp buying. I'm in Pennsylvania this week, visiting my folks, and registering the siren call of the economically-depressed, no-sales-tax Pennsylvania shopping trip. Dear reader, stuff here is cheap. I knew I wouldn't be able to totally hold back on all purchasing (as I've mentioned before, going to Jo-Ann's and Michael's is a major bonding opportunity for my mom and me), so I set aside a small amount of money to purchase with.

All was going well. I got materials to make two pillows (and actually began making one, details on that soon). The weather was cooperating with me, by snowing constantly and keeping us all pretty much indoors. So I got a bit cocky, and agreed to accompany my mother to Wal-mart. I needed a glass jar (glass, not plastic, thank you) to keep my homemade granola in. This way lies destruction, my friends.

Wal-mart, a place I don't like at all but always seem to find what I need in, was no big deal to get through. But then my mom suggested we scoot over to Ross, a discount clothier that seems to perfectly fit my desires in clothes shopping: they have things, cheap, in my size, in black. It's a quagmire. Still, I did ok, finding 3 pieces that were still within my budget and not a waste of money. And then I went to the lamps.

Well, I need another lamp. I have a visitor coming next weekend and I think she might like to see what she's doing in the guest room (there's no working overhead light). And it was inexpensive, $20 for both the lamp itself and the shade. And it's pretty, three large crystalish globes on top of each other forming the base. And... um, I paid for it in cash?

Let's not even discuss how I still have to pay to have it shipped back to Brooklyn...

02/14/2010

I was hit by an urge to send Valentines this year. Who knows why? I usually make my own Christmas cards and didn't have time to this year (nor did I last year, but I made them anyway, crying quietly to myself late at night whilst doing so -- this year I forced myself to purchase cards early, which solved the problem), so perhaps the card-making urge was just too strong. And, of course, I wanted to tell a few people who I love that I love them. So I decided to challenge myself to make no more than 6 cards, for my family and closest friends, using stuff I already have.

I began with a card pack that I bought somewhere at Christmas time. The cards with white, brown, cream and grey and I went with the grey. I wanted to make something home-made looking yet faintly sophisticated and grey seemed right for that. I also just love grey. It's by far my favorite neutral color.

I used some scrapbooking paper that I had picked up in PA at a Michael's. The paper was all in a 1950's style that made me a little crazy with joy. After much deliberation, I decided to actually use my two favorite prints from it. The one above (which I confess, I loved so much, I kept for myself) and a cool flocked black and white style that you can see below.

I also used a set of letter stamps that I got at Michael's for $1 with a blue inkpad that I had. Yep, I'm the kind of person who has random inkpads lying around. That's why I don't need to buy.any.thing.for.a.while.

For envelopes, I had to improvise since the card set didn't come with them and I didn't want to use something that didn't fit right. I remembered that my friend Duck sometimes makes cards out of magazines so I spent 10 minutes online reading various envelope-from-magazine-pages tutorials and trying to figure out what size template to print out. Then I read on one of 'em that you can just carefully open up the right sized envelope and use that as your template. Ah-ha! Genius.

I found it really absurdly fun to choose appropriate magazine pages and make the envelopes. The one above is for my brother and sister-in-law, who are the kind of fashionable young couple pictured. I found some great Tiffany's ads that included lots of lips and nekkidness (great for V Day, right?) and, as below, some cool NYC black and white ads for my best friend Roo and his partner. I used a purple Sharpie to just write right across the ad after the envelope was done. (I glued them after folding them and used office sticky dots to seal).

The best magazine score was a couple of straight-up silver card-stock ads from Nordstrom. Perfect envelopes for my parents' card. I will never look at magazines the same way again, I tell ya. They are a hot bed of creativity waiting to happen. :)

Below is my favorite envelope, a gorgeous Cartier ad which I used to send a Valentine to my best friend in SC, and her family. I kind of love that I get the prestige of the Cartier name and the beautiful sentiment of their famous ring, without spending anything. Since I had stamps already, and glue, and a pen, and magazines, and cards, and paper, and office sticky dots, my total expenditure to tell all these folks I love them? $0. Or priceless. You know, whichever.

02/07/2010

I woke up happy today. This is not a small thing. I've not been very happy lately. But today, I woke up to the sun shining through my blinds. I knew I had plenty of time to get to church (instead of traveling almost an hour to get there, I was going to a church about a brisk 15 walk from me). I only have a week of school and then a week off. I had spent the morning of the day before at the library and writing, and the afternoon with my best friend, seeing a good a movie and having a good chat. I even got some organizing done last night. It was a good day. Today felt like a good day beginning. And I wanted to buy something.

Ah, yes. The eternal paradox of the consumer (like me). When we are sad, we want to buy something to cheer us up. And when we are happy, we want to buy something to commemorate our happiness. Good times.

It's been about 6 weeks since I began this campaign to cut back on my debt. I'm pleased with how I've done (although I continue to despair about how much debt I racked up and how little I can do to get rid of it in the immediate future) in terms of reducing my consumption. I've not purchased anything in that time that did not have a clear purpose or function in my life. I've upgraded -- a better robe, and a good pair of shoes (although those, sadly, had to go back to the store, as they did not fit well). I've bought food, of course, and lunches and dinners out with friends. I've gone to two movies (hideously overpriced, but thoroughly enjoyable anyway) and I bought one magazine. And I've picked up pens, a notebook and a few birthday/holiday gifts for others. I also gave a big (for me) donation to Lutheran World Relief, my charity of choice when natural disaster strikes, as in Haiti. Oh, and I bought a train ticket to PA for next week. That's right, I bought it straight up. On my debit (not credit) card. Big yay.

This is good stuff! I'm pleased and proud of myself, plus I feel calmer in my spending habits. I feel that I am beginning to understand how money goes in and out of my possession. And I still wanted a treat.

Ultimately, I decided to buy the flowers above. They were $6, which is not so much, and, thanks to receiving my per session check from extra work at school, I had the money. They're pretty. They make me feel like Spring is coming. And they're a sign of hope -- that someday, in the not too distant future, I'll reign over my finances with clarity, calmness and a sense of purpose.

For those of you who are interested, the flowers are white tulips, displayed on my living room mantel. The artwork next to it is of my hometown, created by a friend of my family who often makes use of Johnstown places in her work. I really love the dimensionality of that piece. And next to it is an awesome vase of saying and quotes, one for each day of my 35th year, from my wonderful friends, the Marrs. I don't take one out every day, as you can see. Just when I need a strengthening thought!

02/04/2010

The robe over which I agonized (see below) arrived on Tuesday afternoon. It is sooo soft. The color is flattering. It fits. It does not have, um, chocolate stains on the front. It does not, um, have a hold in the right underarm. It is really, really nice and warm, and did I mention, soft? It was well worth the $25.

And I think it's worth noting that I've truly taken notice of this purchase. It's not an acquistion that just came into my life and made little impact (like, say, a book I forgot I bought two months ago and just found, to my shame or a magazine that I read and discarded within hours, or a dress I ordered online and hated after trying it on but never got around to sending it back..). I've noticed having this robe and I like it. It has made my life better. And I paid for it straight up, no credit card.